Characteristics of Adolescents Affected by Mass Psychogenic Illness Outbreaks in Schools in Nepal: A Case-Control Study.
Frontiers in psychiatry January 1, 2020 Ram P Sapkota, Alain Brunet, Laurence J Kirmayer 21 citations
In a systematic case-control study of 384 Nepalese adolescents aged 11-18 from 12 public schools, 194 students affected by mass psychogenic illness (MPI) were compared with 190 unaffected controls. MPI is understood as a dissociative phenomenon spread through social contagion among those prone to dissociation. Bivariate analyses linked caseness to childhood physical neglect and abuse, living in nuclear families, peritraumatic dissociation, dissociative tendencies, and depressive and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Hypnotizability was the strongest correlate among cognitive and personality traits. However, multivariable logistic regression found that common correlates of dissociation did not predict caseness, suggesting these factors do not adequately explain MPI. A Classification and Regression Trees analysis indicated that highly hypnotizable adolescents with high peritraumatic dissociation had a 73% probability of being a case.